A new lawsuit claims that "e-meters" â€” devices which Scientologists claim reveal a person's mental state â€” are made by slave labor.

March 29, 2010

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The Church of Scientology has been accused of locking up workers in a Californian "slave labor" camp. The 5,000 members of the church's Sea Organization live communally, vow to forego having children, and sign a billion-year loyalty pledge. But a new lawsuit from two former "Sea Org" members claims they were treated like prisoners, held against their will, and forced to work 100 hours a week compiling Scientology literature for almost no pay. The church says that the Sea Org followers are members of a religious order, like monks, and thus exempt from wage and overtime laws. Is Scientology running an illegal sweatshop outside Los Angeles?

All this evidence points to the truth: Well, now we know where "all those crappy pamphlets and all that L. Ron Hubbard literature" comes from, says Ravi Somaiya in Gawker. Predictably, Scientology's leadership was "outraged and denied the allegations vehemently," but this lawsuit isn't the first to suggest this kind of abuse. When "so many 'liars' come out of Scientology saying very similar bad stuff about the 'church,'" why should we believe what the leaders say?"More on Scientology's brutal sweatshops"